Philippine regional carrier Asian Spirit plans to launch international services using its BAe 146 fleet, which will double in size during 2006 despite the loss of an aircraft late last year.
Asian Spirit says its first international route will connect the southern Philippine city of Davao with Palau in Micronesia from March. The carrier will use one of its two 83-seat 146-100s on the service, which will originate in Manila. Asian Spirit now mainly uses the regional jet to connect Manila with small island destinations, but it is looking at launching several international routes, including to greater China.
Asian Spirit took delivery of its first 146 early last year and initially operated one -100 and one 100-seat -200. But industry sources say the -200 has been written off after the nose was damaged in November during landing at Catarman Island.
Sources say the 146-200, a former National Jet aircraft that was registered in Australia as VH-NJW before moving to the Philippines as RP-C2995, overran the runway and ended up in a rice field. There were no serious injuries, but it would be too difficult to recover the aircraft from the remote location to make a repair worthwhile.
Asian Spirit took delivery of its second 146-100 last month and is scheduled to receive another 146-200 later this month. It will take a second 146-200 around mid-year. Originally, Asian Spirit was committed to leasing five 146s from BAE Systems, but as a result of the hull loss it is now only committed to leasing four with options on another three.
President Antonio Buendia says the carrier also looked at acquiring two 146s from Bhutan’s Druk Air, but prefers to enter into lease-purchase deals with BAE Systems that include maintenance and pilot training.
“So many offer cheap 146s, but we don’t know how much they will cost to fix,” Buendia says. The carrier also operates four de Havilland Canada Dash 7s, one BAe ATP, two Indonesian Aerospace CN-235s and two Let L-410s. It also wet-leases two 60-seat NAMC YS-11s from Philippine carrier Aboidiz and Buendia says it has agreed to wet-lease a third from March.
BRENDAN SOBIE/SINGAPORE
Source: Flight International
